The Christchurch Civic Crèche Case |
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A City Possessed: After a decade of debate, it seems the Peter Ellis case is
simply not going to just go away. It also seems there is nothing to write
about it that has not already been written a hundred times over. Anyone who
has studied The Crucible will be all too aware of the ability history has to
repeat itself. The extraordinary, vindictive ignorance of the
hyper-zealous parents, therapists and “experts” involved in the Christchurch
Civic Creche circus beggars belief. Why these people were so dead-set on
believing that the children had been abused is utterly bewildering. Their
callous determination to paint the man who had cared for their children as
the personification of depravity is unforgivable. Plaudits must go out to people such as Lynley Hood,
Katherine Rich, Don Brash and Barry Coleman for lending their own weight
behind the campaign to give Peter Ellis a full and deserved pardon. Anyone
who has reached their own conclusions about Ellis’s guilt without reading
Hood’s extraordinarily well researched and argued A City Possessed should bite their tongue and hold their pride
until they have read it. At the risk of repeating what dozens of others had
repeated ad nauseum, I will give a summary of some of the aspects that make
Peter Ellis’s conviction unsafe, as discussed in Hood’s book: 1)
No disclosures were made in the first round of interviews.
Disclosures were only made after repeated interviewing, some interviews
lasting around two and a half hours, enough to wear down any poor child’s
defence. Children who made no disclosures were said to be “in denial.”
Children who made disclosures, it was said, “must be believed” – no matter
how outlandish or imaginative the disclosures. As such, there was no response
the children could give that would not implicate Peter one way or another. 2)
Despite being instructed told not to, overzealous parents
repeatedly interrogated their children at home, and there was a great amount
of networking between these parents. Where parents networked, the amount of
“disclosures” grew. As did the level of cross-contamination. 3)
The oldest and most credible of all the witnesses later
withdrew her allegations, saying that she only said what she thought she was
supposed to say. This should have been the end of it all. However, while the
convictions related to her were dropped, judges who reviewed resulting
appeals said that she was in denial. She still stands by her claim she lied.
Other children who made allegations have since retracted them, again claiming
that the methods of questioning used resulted in them saying what their
interviewers wanted to hear. 4)
Among the disclosures the Creche children made were; being
suspended in cages, having burning paper and sticks inserted up their anuses,
watching a classmate being being pursued by Ellis and killed with an axe,
being thrown down trapdoors, being part of satanic ceremonies, being
defecated and urinated on, etc etc. Not once did a parent report their children
to come back from creche soiled in any way. No bruises or any other kind of
injuries were ever reported. No trapdoors or evidence whatsoever was found of
ritual abuse. The house where the ritual abuse had allegedly taken place –
supposedly ground zero for satanic rituals in Christchurch - was no longer
inhabited by Ellis, and he had paid only one brief visit there with the
children. 5)
The policeman in charge of the case was homophobic, and
held relationships with the parents and social workers involved in the case.
He was known to show up unexpectedly at the children’s homes to convince them
to say things that would get Ellis locked up. 6)
Expert Karen Zelas reported the following behaviours
displayed by the “victims” to be consistent with sexual abuse: sleep disturbances,
nightmares, tummy aches, vomiting, moodiness, separation anxiety, anxiety
about school, loss of concentration, over conscientiousness, low self-esteem,
tantrums, reluctance to go to bed, fear of spiders, not eating
spaghetti...the list goes on. When Ellis’s defence attorney cross-examined
Zelas and asked what behaviours were NOT consistent with sexual abuse, she
replied, “I hadn’t thought of that yet.” 7)
In the five years Ellis worked at the Christchurch Civic
Creche, no abuse was seen by any adult whatsoever. Parents and staff came and
went freely; for them to have not walked in on Ellis at all during the
allegedly perpetual offending is scarcely believable. 8)
When Ellis took the children for walks (during which
orgies and ritual ceremonies were alleged to have taken place), all of the
creche staff bar one said the walks never lasted more than 70 minutes, and
that the children enjoyed them and never returned in a state of distress. 9)
It was alleged by the “victims” that Peter Ellis drove
them to the aforementioned place of abuse. Ellis could not drive and did not
have a car. 10)
Ellis’s four female co-workers were discharged in regards
to the notorious ritual “circle incident”, charges which Ellis was
nonetheless convicted of. 11)
Because he was a homosexual and occasionally made
scatological wisecracks in the company of adults, Ellis was painted as
sexually deviant and perverted, and thus supposedly consistent with the
makeup of a child molester. By this criteria, most homosexual men would have
the makeup of a child molester. 12)
Despite the testimony of only a handful of the children
being deemed worthy to take to trial, approximately 40 families from the
Civic Creche received a $10,000 payout from ACC – a windfall that may have
acted as an incentive to many. 13)
The mother of the child who made the first disclosure –
about Peter’s “black penis” - that started it all was a militant feminist
with a history of drug and alcohol abuse. After shifting her son from the
Civic Creche to another creche, she proceeded to accuse a male worker at that
creche of sexually abusing her son too. 14)
Some of the videotapes of the children being questioned –
many of which showed highly questionable, impressionable methods of
questioning – were not allowed to be shown to the jury by the presiding
judge. Thus the convicting jury never got the full picture of the highly
doubtful tactics used to procure these allegations. 15)
Aside from the highly questionable and subjective
testimonies of the children - which despite being irrepairably contaminated,
were still allowed as evidence – there was no physical evidence or any adult
witnesses to the abuse to corroborate their testimonies. 16)
The laughable bandwagon of allegations have still not
ceased; recently, a 22 year old man known as “Nathan” made allegations that
he had been abused by Ellis when he attended the Civic Creche. “Nathan” left
the Creche in 1985. Peter Ellis did not begin working at the Creche until
August 1986. I could go on and on...A
City Possessed is close to 700 pages. So, before claiming you know best
and pronouncing Ellis guilty simply because he looks like a creep, read the
book, and explain away the evidence – or lack thereof. This case has made men afraid of becoming creche workers,
teachers, babysitters, and – god forbid – loving parents. Ellis’s conviction
perpetuates the outrageous myth that a man cannot be left alone in a room
with a small child. As a result, the divide that isolates ordinary, caring
men from our society’s children is widening. The zealots – often with a
grudge against men or homosexuals – who launched the unstoppable juggernaut
of hysteria that saw Ellis locked away are the ones who should be locked away
themselves. For wishing sexual abuse onto their own children, and most likely
scarring them for life by letting them believe that they were sexually
abused. And for destroying the life of a well meaning man who was simply in
the wrong place at the wrong time. Phil Goff has said that a Royal Commission of Inquiry will
not be set up unless new evidence is introduced by Ellis’s defence team. Why
should Ellis’s team need to provide new evidence when the Crown was never
required to provide any to begin with? Let’s hope sense prevails. |